New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art Releases 375,000 Images for Unrestricted Use

Looking to add a beautiful piece of art to your render to really sell your project? Look no further.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced its new Open Access policy, which releases over 375,000 images of artworks from their expansive collection for free download, with absolutely no restrictions under copyright law – meaning you are completely free to copy, remix, or distribute any image for any use, including commercial.

In partnering with institutions and companies including Creative Commons, Wikipedia and Pinterest, the new policy is written to help its collection be accessible to as many people as possible.

To access the images, users can search through the Creative Commons database. Here, you can find drawings of historic architectural works like the Pantheon, as well as paintings from masters such as Vincent van Gogh. From there, you can create lists, add tags, or pin artworks directly to your Pinterest board. Images will also be available in Wikimedia Commons, where the museum’s new in-house “Wikipedian in Residence,” will work to pair images within the WikiProject WikiProject Metropolitan Museum of Art and other Wikimedia pages.

Users are also welcome to search through the collection on the Met’s webpage – though it’s important to note that not all images here are included in the public domain; be sure to select the “public domain artworks” box in the search menu on the left.

To learn more about the new policy and the rules for downloading images, click here.

News via The Metropolitan Museum of Art. H/T Hyperallergic.

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Cite: Patrick Lynch. "New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art Releases 375,000 Images for Unrestricted Use" 15 Feb 2017. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/805446/new-yorks-metropolitan-museum-of-art-releases-375000-images-for-unrestricted-use> ISSN 0719-8884

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